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but neither was she besieged by uneasiness or apprehension. There was no reason to be alarmed, she told herself; after all, Charles has never had much hair, and those deep wrinkles aren’t new, they were carved by the sun long ago; he’s thinner, that’s true, but he’ll snap back in a few days, just as soon as he begins to eat like he used to; this is nothing but indigestion. “Don’t you think he’s much better today?” she would say to no one in particular. Olga watched without comment. She did not attempt to treat Reeves with her potions and poultices but limited her care to holding wet cloths to his forehead to lower the fever. As the invalid declined, fear inexorably infected the rest of the family; for the first time they felt they were drifting and realized the extent of their poverty and vulnerability. Nora retreated like a whipped dog, unable to put her mind to finding solutions; she sought consolation in her Bahai faith and left all problems to Olga—including her husband’s care. She could not bring herself to touch that sick old man; he was a stranger: how could she possibly recognize him as the man who had charmed her with his vitality? Her admiration and reliance, the bases for her love, disintegrated, and as she did not know how to construct new ones, respect turned to repugnance. As soon as she found a good excuse, she moved into the children’s tent, and Olga went to sleep with Charles Reeves—to nurse him through the night, she said. Gregory and Judy became accustomed to seeing her half naked in their father’s bed; Nora ignored the situation, preferring to pretend that nothing had changed.
    For a while the unveiling of The Infinite Plan was suspended, because the Doctor in Divine Sciences lacked the fortitude to instill hope in others when he was beginning to lose his own and secretly wonder whether the spirit truly transcends or whether it can be dashed to smithereens by a bellyache. He did not even feel like painting. Their travels continued, with tightened purse strings and with no perceptible purpose, as if they were looking for something that was always a little farther down the road. It seemed quite natural for Olga to assume the place of the father, and the others never questioned whether that was the best solution; she set the itinerary, drove the truck, hoisted the heaviest bundles, repaired the engine when it wouldn’t start, hunted rabbits and birds, and with the same note of authority issued orders to Nora and paddled the children when they got out of hand. She avoided large cities because of the merciless competition and the eagle eye of the police, except when they could camp in industrial zones or near the docks, where she could always find a client. She would leave the Reeveses installed in the tents, gather up her necromancer’s trappings, and go out to sell her arts. For traveling she wore rough workman’s pants, an undershirt, and a cap, but to ply her trade as fortune-teller she pulled a gaudy flower-printed skirt from her trunk, a low-cut blouse, jangling necklaces, and yellow boots. She brushed on makeup with a free hand—cheeks like a clown, red mouth, blue eyelids—and the effect of that mask, her clothes, and the fiery hair was so intimidating that few dared turn her away for fear that with a flourish she would turn them into a pillar of salt. When they opened the door and found a grotesque apparition standing before them with a crystal ball in one hand, their jaws dropped, a moment of hesitation that Olga seized upon to get into the house. She could be very charming when the occasion demanded, and often returned to the camp with a piece of pie or some meat, gifts from clients satisfied not only with the future promised in the magical cards but even more with the spark of good humor she had injected into the uninterrupted boredom of their lives. During that period of great uncertainty, the sibyl fine-tuned her